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17 federal contractors each claim to know the best way to modernize the retirement system at the Office of Personnel Management. Those vendors pitched their ideas to OPM at an Industry Day earlier this year, and now the agency's gearing up for its fifth attempt to modernize its system. Valerie Melvin is Director of Information Management and Technology Resources Issues at the Government Accountability Office. On In Depth with Francis Rose, she said OPM needs to weigh its options carefully so the fifth try is the one that finally sticks.

Office of Personnel Management officials told the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Census about its plan to buy a case management system. The case management system will serve as the foundation for yet another attempt at modernizing the retirement system.

The National Technical Information Service is supposed to be a repository where federal agencies can find -- and buy -- new research publications. But lately the new research from NTIS isn't new, and 95 percent of it's available online for free. Valerie Melvin is Director of Information Management and Technology Resources Issues at the Government Accountability Office. She testified about the agency's financial future before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight. Valerie shared her conclusions on In Depth with Francis Rose.

The Office of Personnel Management has made steady progress chipping away at a longstanding backlog of retirement claims. But Oversight Committee lawmakers and other government watchdogs remain concerned that the absence of a long-term plan to overhaul the mostly paper-based process combined with across-the-board budget cuts and a lack of strong leadership within OPM could stall or derail the progress the agency has made.

The Office of Personnel Management has a new strategy for tackling its backlog of 62,000 retirement applications. But, after 25 years of hearing such promises, lawmakers are skeptical. The Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Subcommittee on Oversight brought agency director John Berry to Capitol Hill to explain why this strategy is different.